I came in for one thing.

written for last week's Staff Talent Show

The store is stuffed with mounds of merch.

The people come, and oh, they search.

A Scrabble mug. A picture frame.

That book. You know, by what’s-her-name.

They come with varied goals in mind,

exceeded by the things they find.

Who knew how many pins they’d need?

Who knew how much they had to read?

Who knew a ring could tell their mood?

Who knew their mood was “wanting food.

Yes, cookies. Yes, the kind by Tate’s.”

They need a planner, for their dates

are filling fast. They’re busy bees.

They’d best relax. They need some teas

to drink while watching Game of Thrones,

a show that frustrates with unknowns…

unless they cheat and read ahead.

But who has time for weddings red?

They’d better get a magazine.

And just because they’re past eighteen

can’t mean the grownup books are urgent.

Look! John Green! And look! Divergent!

Look! Nostalgia! Goodnight Moon!

Isn’t someone’s kid due soon?

Trees that gave and trains that could.

Those books were their childhood.

Wimpy kids and half-blood gods.

Boston books? What stunning odds!

A spinner sorted, slot by slot.

(I hope and dream. It’s all I’ve got.)

There’s Parenting and Health and Psych

and travel guides by train or bike.

That bargain book may not last long.

To pass it up would just be wrong.

And who could skip the plates and bowls?

Not those with culinary goals

that match the cookbooks perfectly—

the kosher to the gluten-free.

Five months till Christmas! None to waste!

Find books for every reading taste,

though friends can be persnickety.

Who won’t inhale the Picketty?

Knausgaard wrote about his struggle.

Rowling wrote about a muggle.

Stacks of Books We Love, and each

might be useful for the beach.

Almost out, but wait, there’s more!

Stairs reveal another floor.

All the books they’ve meant to read,

used! A worthy deal indeed.

And while they soothe their reader-shame,

they spot a favorite author’s name.

She’s coming on a looming eve!

Yeah, they’ll come back. Or just not leave.

But—sigh—the rest of life awaits.

They must ascend. (And buy more Tate’s.

And mini-books. And chocolate bars.

And bags for schlepping to their cars.)

They think, “I might as well. I’m here.”

Impulsive? Sure. But they are dear

to we who fill the waiting shelves.

They never need explain themselves.

So let your basket overflow.

‘Cause would we ever judge you? NO!

Customer Assistance: A Poem

(written for last week's Booksmith Staff Talent Show)

Our schedule has thirty names upon it.

The regulars may know us all by face.

But here's a bit of customer assistance

in telling who is who around the place.

Well, Dana runs the show; she's there surveying

the details from her elevated perch.

And Lisa's our Premier of Product Placement,

the maven of the movement of the merch.

There's Peter wading through receipts and errors.

He brings us bags of bagels anyway.

The galleys in our cubbies come from Alie.

We swear we'll get through all of them someday.

When something breaks, it's time to call on Bruno.

His day is full, for furniture is fickle.

Call Daniel for a detailed book suggestion,

a thorough search, or yummy homemade pickle.

The Shire's tallest honorary hobbit

is Erik, always noting and observing.

And Jamie plans events and tweets and tumbles.

Her skills at multi-tasking are unnerving.

In rain or shine, there's Jon receiving boxes

of nearly every book that's introduced.

And Jodie travels 'round the lonely planet

with Waldo and with expertise in Proust.

And holy crime in Italy, our Kobos
would languish if we lacked the help of Kat.
And Katie runs the blog, designs our flyers,
and works on many stuffs on top of that.
When music decades-old is on the speakers,
then Liz is here, and Waltham feels her lack.
There's Lydia; she's dreaming of a kitty
and shelving with a zipper down her back.
The chocolate and the books from smaller presses
and lots of music knowledge come from Mark.
Paul quotes his witty children and informs them
of how to read a C.S. Lewis arc.
At closing or when helping with receiving,
Ric's known for being chill and easy-going.
And likewise, Russ, with saintly stores of patience
keeps often-very-special orders flowing.
There's literary Shuchi, known for Grub Street
and elephants, which populate her book.
And hey, I'll take some pity on the new guy,
so Tom, this time, at least, you're off the hook.

Now, Amy loves YA, and blogs, and magic
and drawing awesome figures out of sticks.
And biased though I am, I think our section's
the best within this mortar and these bricks.
Clarissa joined us recently and added
her energy and voice into the mix.

The UBC is quietly kept humming
by Carl in his uniform of plaid.
Natasha's love of fairy tales is deathless,
so check her chapbooks out - they're crazy rad.

The C and G has windups, earrings, candles
and stuff of every nature that appeals.
It's Kerri who decides on every item.
She gets it right, and does it all in heels!
And Bacon sizzles, belting '80s music.
Her workload gives us all the heebie-jeebies.
A stranger in a wig? Well, that, most likely,
is Julia, creator of the chibis.
There's no one aging quickly at the Booksmith.
We're all kept young by sweet and youthful Tate.
And Joe's returned to find a store of changes
and help a most creative team create.

Well, that's the team in-store. As you can witness,
the group is vibrant, active, and alive.
So how come I don't hear a page of "got it"
for customer assistance to Reg 5?

Tattoos, Denny's and other Japanese literary symbols

Last week I wrote ad nauseum of my forthcoming trip to Japan. In order to prepare for said trip (and also because I'm super excited) I've been reading all kinds of Japanese literature to get my head in the game as it were. Here are some of my favorites thus far:

Kenneth Roxroth's 100 Poems from the Japanese and One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese, in addition to Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu's poetry compiled in The Ink Dark Moon are some of the most beautifully selected words placed in a deliberate arrangement ever. I wish I could describe to you how beautiful enigmatic it is all at the same time, reading these are like feeling you're made of glass and slowing filling with curls of smoke. I can't do them justice, just read them all.

If we're going to talk about epic literature from Japan I'd be remiss in not including Tale of Genji. One of the first novels in the world, written by a LADY, it really is the coolest thing ever. But I've never finished it. I'm SORRY! Gosh.

What I have finished are some of the best modernist novels ever. Natsume Soseki could teach Raymond Carver a thing or two about deeply psychological interiority belied by understated language. The Gate is an amazing, slim novel in which the main character and his wife live childless in an idyllic picket fence house. But that's about as peaceful as it gets. The main character hates his job. The couple are spurned by their families as they married without consent, and suddenly his wife's reckless little brother squeezes the strained couple for help on top of it all. So taught, so beautiful, suuuch a good book.

Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes is unmissable, and Yukio Mishima's short stories in the collected Death in Midsummer are among my favorite reads of all time. His characters have amazing strength and fatal flaws and you'll need to read each story several times for the feeling that there's a detail in one word (or absence of one) that casts everything in a new light. I also recently finished Junichiro Tanizaki's Seven Japanese Tales ... one story in particular, "The Tattooer" has left quite the indelible mark on me (pun fully intended). This man is an expert tattooer and only tattoos on people when he's inspired, and he finds ultimate inspiration in a beautiful maiden walking down the street. Convinced she is a demonic scroll come incarnate he is gripped with the need to tattoo her, and as she consents the art embellishing her back begins to imbue her with magnificent power. KAPOW!

For a more contemporary Japan (the one I'll actually be in) there is the incomparable Murakami. Thus far I've only read After Dark, to be honest it's a little daunting to decide where to go from there. After Dark is amazing. It's set in Tokyo around midnight and follows all the different sorts of people that only come out at night, in addition to a young runaway who may or may not be related to a rebooted magical Sleeping Beauty dozing in the literal center of the novel. But as I said, Murakami's got sprawling epics and copious short stories. I know I'll love them all but how to decide?! Maybe I'll take 1Q84 on my 16 hour plane flight? I might be able to bang it out...

Big Books, Small Presses

As an avid reader and lover of all things books, I get really excited by small scrappy upstart presses that publish really bold, beautiful books that are a little bit grainier, hard-edged, strange or literally foreign for the big guys to pay much attention to. Small presses print translations you can't find anywhere else, raw, gutsy memoirs, poetry that burns bright with cleverness and an experimental air. They're small enough to take risks on books they believe in and while I LOVE me some books that the big guys print, I think a book club dedicated to small presses would A) give some recognition to books without big promotional budgets that might get overlooked, and B) encourage all you smarty Booksmith shoppers to go to a book club where it isn't necessarily a novel we read, but maybe a collection of poetry, or a book of literary non-fiction. I'm not a  poet but sometimes Wave Books prints a book of poetry so beautiful I have to read it and when I do I want to talk about it because I DON'T UNDERSTAND POETRY BUT I THINK I LIKE IT A LOT ANYWAY. What does this meeeean? Let's talk about it together!

If the prospect of the Small Press Book Club appeals to you, drop me an e-mail and I'll contact you before September when we'll (hopefully) start to meet. Meetings would be once a month for about an hour, and there would be SNACKS. E-mail me if you're interested! The more people I know are interested the more likely this will work out. And that means MORE snacks to you, the consumer. E-mail me at natasha -at- brooklinebooksmith -dot- com.

Sordid Books

This last week, the UBC acquired Sorted Books by artist Nina Katchadourian. Katchadourian is a multimedia artist and this volume collects her HIGHLY ENJOYABLE photgraphs/scans of book titles arranged in order so that they tell a story. Sometimes profound, sometimes funny, this is a great book and hugely inspiring. $12 in the UBC! It's a bargain! Check her out:

As I said it was hugely inspiring, so your faithful UBC compatriots have arranged a few of our own from our stacks of New Arrivals.

The Banquet on Which We Feed

A big part of the fun, adventure and excitement that comes from buying used books from the general public is finding patterns. When a person brings in a bag, box or dresser drawer full of books, you can see a lot about a person: her life, her interests, the fads she's casting off. Or even more interesting, you can see a portrait of a couple, or a mother-daughter pair, or whatever configuration of people run errands together. Concurrently, over the course of a busy week of buying, strange patterns can emerge on a grander scale. Some weeks it will seem like a lot of people unloaded books on Buddhism, or classical liberalism, or like last week, a lot of cool finds relating to Patti Smith, one of the most IMPORTANT ARTISTS OF OUR TIME.

Hyperbole is annoying, and with Ms. Smith in particular, the titles are a bit silly. At first she was the mother of punk rock, and as she grows older she becomes the great grandmother of punk (as she quipped on The Colbert Report). But it is undeniable what a great musician she continues to be, and through reading both her memoir and her volumes of poetry, what a gifted, crystal clear and heartbreakingly beautiful observer and writer she is as well.

from Woolgathering

So what did we haul in the UBC? There's a copy of Just Kids, the memoir of her days with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the New York of the 70s, which reads like a scrappy künstlerroman and touchstone for an important time in the history of modern and post-modern American art. Photography, poetry, music. Poverty. Makin' it. Losing. Loving. It's all here. Johnny Depp loved it. Critics loved it. Booksellers loved it. Your book club will love it.

Furthermore, in the wake of her successful memoir, New Directions published an earlier book of Smith's, Woolgathering a sort of memoir written in vignettes. Beautiful little scraps of memories from her childhood and reflections on growing up accompanied by beautiful, fascinating photographs.

And finally, we acquired a copy of Seventh Heaven, collecting Smith's fan fiction of the hit WB family drama. Or, perhaps on further inspection it's a rare collection of her poetry printed in the 70s, as raw and real and punchy as her best lyrics. Snatch it up, it's a collector's item.

"So this nerd fest starts at 7?"

OMG I hope we got enough copies of my chapbook in!

The title of this blog post is a direct quote from my friend Ashley in reference to when the staff reading started last night. Felt apropos. Yes, the nerd fest started at 7 pm, promptly. Last night was effin' magical, bros. I sincerely hope you made it to see the varied array of beautiful, unnerving, gross (you're welcome) and inspiring work that was read last night. The thing about working with creative people is that you don't know them primarily through their creative means. To me, Natasha is not Natasha the writer, even though I know she writes. Because I'm so deeply in love with her, I assume she's good at it, but before last night, in my brain, Natasha is foremost just Natasha, goofy and darkly beautiful High Priestess of the Used Book Cellar. She still is that, that and a silver moonwolf that ripples through midnight like a dragonfly alighting on water, but now I have to add that she can also write characters really well. That's how I felt about everyone last night. I got a couple glasses of wine in me and kept going up to my co-workers and saying things like, "I didn't know you could REALLY write!" and "You didn't tell me you were actually TALENTED, you jerk!" and they would get that look on their faces that says, am I offended? Am I complimented? Am I both? I'm so sorry. I have a BA in English, so to me, writing is one of those things that everybody THINKS they can do, but most people can't really do. Last night, however, at the staff reading, I got to hear all these people that have seen me at probably my best and worst, (mostly my worst, I'm kind of a terrible co-worker) prove that they actually have the skills to pay the bills. Blown away.

After the reading was over, some of us went to the bar, and then I went home and got like 5 hours of sleep and now I'm back at the store eating leftover chips and dip from last night and acting like coffee has an exponentially increasing awakening power by volume, which, I don't know if you know this, it does not. I'm doing that tired thing where not a lot makes sense and I can't really taste food. We're also having our sidewalk half-off sale today and tomorrow, so there's a new added level of out-of-body experience where we have books on tables outside and one of my duties this morning was going to Magic Bean and "Getting the Balloons", which is not a euphemism for anything, I literally got balloons. We have half priced books of all varieties, art books, novels, self help, you name it, we got it. Games and card and gift also has items on sale, everything from scarves to journals to...decorative bird shaped wine bottle stoppers/tea light holder. Come check it out!

That's all for now. I'm gonna go eat a bunch of chips for breakfast like an adult. I'd like to thank everybody that participated in last nights event, especially Kate Robinson for being so amazing and writing such a beautiful and moving chapbook that was the catalyst for this amazing event. I would also like to thank Dana Brigham and the Brookline Booksmith in general; there are many ways to show appreciation for your employees, but I'm pretty sure letting them buy a bunch of wine and get behind a mic and read their poem about flu-related bodily functions is both the best and least common way of doing it. Booksmith for King. Long live Booksmith.

Also! Keep an eye out in Bmail and here and on the website. We recorded this event and others that we expect to be making available in podcast form as soon as possible. Thanks pals. Keep it real.

A Curated Selection for the Time-Traveller

Basically my job is to buy books from people when they come in to the shop to sell them. It is a fun job. Though my exciting job of mostly repetition (Steig Larsson, Jodi Picoult, Tracy Kidder, Steig Larsson, Jodi Picoult, lather, rinse, repeat) eventually yields delicious discovery! Like last Saturday, man-oh-man I'll tell you what. I've been at this job for a year now (where was my petting zoo and pizza party?!) and days like last Saturday are few and far between. Nearly everybody who came in had rad stuff, things we were looking for, things we can always use, things I've never seen before that are magical and strange. Basically, it was a good day for buyin'. But my favorite thing about days like that, as you may be able to tell from reading the blog, is finding neat patterns in the seemingly random collections people bring in.

Like this sequence of relics from the past, titles in present tense and speculative fiction of the future:

For just $5.50, you can own a piece of Massachusetts history. The North Shore of Massachusetts Bay: An Illustrated Guide and History comes with cool, out-of-date maps, awesome engravings, and is a complete reissue of an 1881 text, so even the typeface used is old-timey. Slip into this slim volume and be transported to a time when there was no CVS in downtown Salem and tooth extraction was a mere .25, add some ether or gas for $1.00!

But nowadays, you're pathologized for living in the past; nostalgia is a sickness, those times were no good, you gotta live in the NOW. Well, right NOW is all about poetry, cool illustrations and strange superheroes. Only because I love the title of this book and when co-bookseller Jamie saw it, she oohed and aahed over it, confessing it was a personal favorite. And really, good poetry is best read as a clean slate: completely in the present, without reference to past or concern for the future.

Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross by Mark Yakich is a confluence of many great things, to appreciate here and now. The jacket copy is a handy map to the contents, "If you like poems about the sea, turn to page 49," also, "And then, there's everyone's greatest joy and incense: 'Love Poems,' which you will find, like the French, everywhere and nowhere at once, but especially on p. 64 with 'A Little Morning After Poem.'"

But, if you're like me: certifiably ADD, a terminal daydreamer, and with all but a diagnosis in-hand for restless leg, mind and eye syndrome, perhaps travelling to the future might excite your emotions. And not just any future-story, but one in which a believable, empathetic underdog is the protagonist.


I submit to you, for $6.50, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. When we pack up our earthly possessions and head to Mars for some light terraforming and condo-building, this is the novel you will need in your space-rucksack, as it offers all kinds of helpful suggestions for peaceful coexistence with our appliance friends who will obviously already be living there after their uselessness on Earth compels them to found a new civilization on the Crimson Planet. Maybe they'll teach us how to grow Mars Bars. Mmmmm.

Until next time, friends! Unless I'm living on Mars! In which case: bring kittens!

Pre- Super Bowl Flash Contest ($, poetry, FAME)

Ok, take a receipt (from us)

• write a short poem/ flash fiction on the back of it



• send it to me

Kate Robinson
279 Harvard Street
Brookline, MA 02135

The winner will get:

• a gift certificate



• a book of poetry



• their poem on our FB and blog.

You have till February 10th (postmarked) or just hand deliver it.

Go Pats!!!!!!

Some quick cheese.

Try poems.


Dirty little bricks-
so many finger shakers
fertile pace makers.

Turn to the tip
of some forgotten truth-

a sour toothed balm.
Palm again the exhale in the

train's breaks
with line breaks

take another take.
Give someone a scream and a sigh.

unhinge the hamper,
filth up the quaint-

make it shine
a brake-less car on the highway
of your heart.

*


Check out some of our amazing small press chapbooks!!

Madeline Rodenberg. Remember that name.

A dear friend of mine posted a poem her 10 year old daughter wrote, and I had to share it. It is sweet and subtle and mature. It is proof that poetry is alive and well. Also; what an affordable and accessible art!? All one needs is language, and some senses. I think children in particular should be exposed to poetry, and frequently. Tomas Transtrom-trom better watch out. Maddy-lion has arrived.

Feelings

Feelings change as quickly
as the wind blows,
since I'm human I cannot
explain how I feel all times
it is as if I must be a different...
stranger creation
it feels as if I were a calmed tiger,
a slow horse, a turtle at the speed
of light, a lake as still as the spider's
web untouched by rain or wind,
a circle with an end.

Feelings change as quickly as
the wind blows but today the wind is still.

Madeline Othilda Rodenberg (in her own words)

I like old movies, Mexican food, Indian food, and seafood. I dislike cottage cheese and clothes with holes in them. I love to write and want to write for a living, and I take pride in my work. (My favorite color is blue) and I play the piano, the violin, and the bongos. I'm 10. My birthday is August 2, 2001. My birthstone is perry-dote (haha). I also like watching Arrested Development, Glee, and 30 Rock, and I love love love my family.

One poem you should read right now. Especially if this hasn't been your week.

Dell'interno

aria from Giancarlo Cazetti's L'anima di Marina



Sad, you are sad, say the pitying ones.
I have consulted my wisest friends,
I have brought my troubles to the priest,
I have knelt till my knees are cold.


But in no place does the sorrow part,
this curtain that muffles me from light and warmth.
I stare into green leaves but they do not open for me.
I sit in the sun and the sun stays cold.


It is as if the world itself has said No.
It offers to me only a cold surface, dull
but slick, where I cannot grasp hold.
It tells me this is the bed I have made.


Inland, I long for the sea. It too
is cold, but with time the cold goes warm
and its roar is like a mother's heart
and its No becomes the one I speak.

This is from April Bernard's collection Romanticism. Buy it here. *Or *come on in, it's on the display shelf in poetry.

We like stuff that hurts.

I went camping with my brother and his family. On night 2 of heavy guilt-free forest-drinking around a fire, my brother asked me what compels me to read poetry, and I thought to myself (YOU! You asshole, bought me my first collection of Emily D. when I was 8) and, well I did say that out loud I had to follow it with something a bit more eloquent; and here is the ugliness that unfurled.

"Mike, I like to read poetry because you can get away with a lot of weird shit."

"Like what?"

At this point I pulled out this poem I had written (a solid B minus at best) about eating dinner with a blind guy with blue prosthetic eyes, that always landed on my cleavage. I suspected their inauthenticity. My brother said and I quote:

"That is just messed up, why would anyone want to read about that? That's sick"

I chewed on that. Then I thought about a poem my pal Shawna had me read, and how it hurt to read, in the best "scratching an itch" kind of way:

Half Hanged Mary

by Margaret Atwood

7 p.m.

Rumour was loose in the air,
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow,
the barn door open to the sunset.

I didn’t feel the aimed word hit
and go on in like a soft bullet.
I didn’t feel the smashed flesh
closing over it like water
over a thrown stone.

I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts.

Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there’s talk of demons
these come in handy.

8 p.m.

The rope was an improvisation.
With time they’d have thought of axes.

Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.

Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,

old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.

The men of the town stalk homeward,
excited by their show of hate,
their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
and me wearing it.

9 p.m.

The bonnets come to stare,
the dark skirts also,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they’re lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes
and nostrils. I can see their fear.

You were my friend, you too,
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non-wife, to save your life.

Help me down? You don’t dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.

In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
pretending you can’t dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.

I understand. You can’t spare
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl
against the cold,
a good word. Lord
knows there isn’t much
to go around. You need it all.

10 p.m.

Well God, now that I’m up here,
with maybe some time to kill,
away from the daily
fingerwork, legwork, work
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel,
the one about free will.

Is it my choice that I’m dangling
like a turkey’s wattle from this
more than indifferent tree?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope?

Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.

12 midnight

My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air;
I’m reduced to knotted muscle.
Blood bulges in my skull,
my clenched teeth hold it in;
I bite down on despair.

Death sits on my shoulder like a crow
waiting for my squeezed beet
of a heart to burst
so he can eat my eyes

or like a judge
muttering about sluts and punishment
and licking his lips

or like a dark angel
insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
on myself. To breathe out finally.
Trust me, he says, caressing
me. Why suffer?

A temptation, to sink down
onto these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.

To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.
To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.

2 a.m.

Out of my mouths is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.

Or is it, Lord?
Maybe it’s more like being strangled
than I once thought. Maybe it’s
a gasp for air, prayer.
Did those men at Pentecost
want flames to shoot out of their heads?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry,
eyeballs bulging?

As mine are, as mine are.
There is only one prayer; it is not
the knees in the clean nightgown
on the hooked rug.
I want this, I want that.
Oh far beyond.
Call it Please. Call it Mercy.
Call it Not yet, not yet,
as Heaven threatens to explode
inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.

3 a.m.

wind seethes in the leaves around
me the trees exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold on to me
I will not give in

6 a.m.

Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.

Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.

I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart;
bleached out like meat in water.

Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.

At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.

Most will only have one death.
I will have two.

8 a.m.

When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise,
I was still alive.

Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.

I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.

Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.

Before, I was not a witch.
But now I am one.

Later

My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.

My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.

Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.

Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.

My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?

The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.

I love this poem. I'm reading The Art of Cruelty by Maggie Nelson, and I am becoming suspicious of why we are drawn to violence in art.

I don't know.

I just know it feels like a greater violence to be coddled and comforted and lulled into a soup for my soul.

I don't know.

I just know I like to read the ugly, it feels better.

Creepy. Isn't real beauty kinda ugly? There has to be something scary and vulgar to make it lovable, right?

Thoughts on literary masochisms?

Elizabeth Bishop, the poem I can't live without. Thoughts on the new collection.

Cirque D'Hiver
Elizabeth Bishop

Across the floor flits the mechanical toy,
fit for a king of several centuries back.
A little circus horse with real white hair.
His eyes are glossy black.
He bears a little dancer on his back.

She stands upon her toes and turns and turns.
A slanting spray of artificial roses
is stitched across her skirt and tinsel bodice.
Above her head she poses
another spray of artificial roses.

His mane and tail are straight from Chirico.
He has a formal, melancholy soul.
He feels her pink toes dangle toward his back
along the little pole
that pierces both her body and her soul

and goes through his, and reappears below,
under his belly, as a big tin key.
He canters three steps, then he makes a bow,
canters again, bows on one knee,
canters, then clicks and stops, and looks at me.

The dancer, by this time, has turned her back.
He is the more intelligent by far.
Facing each other rather desperately—
his eye is like a star—
we stare and say, "Well, we have come this far."

There has been some controversy over the new collected of Bishop's. I still dig the original...but the new collected offers something different. It offers her dirty napkins with scribbles, and calls them her "letters" and her "poems". Granted I love the idea of totally access to a writers private and public oeuvre, but there is something unsettling about it not being mindfully delineated from the rest of her intentionally "finished" poems. Thoughts?

(this doubtfulness offered in part by April Bernard and Paul Muldoon)

The Season of wilting. Rescue-reading for summer-haytaz.

I have no business staying in New England when the heat comes a-creepin down from the backsa' my knees. No business. It's this time of year I'm without fail-RELIEVED to walk into work everyday. Even without AC it is cooler here. Most people get all sad and mopey in the winter, but for me (and I imagine some other Nordic-types), this is the season for sadness. The season for sunburn, high- happiness expectations, baroque displays from mother nature, (that 80's tart) and a complete reminder that we are in fact sitting in meat cages. Oppressive, oppressive meat cages.

Some reading to go with that thought:

The Cow, by Ariana Reines. We have this one in the store, it is the most profound collection of poems on the human diet, the human body, the self. This collection is a syntactical mind-f#$k. I keep thinking about this book. POETS.....READ THIS, POETRY APATHISTS: READ THIS.

next,

The Room, by Emma Donoghue If you didn't read it in hardcover, worry not. It is in paperback. You will want to kiss me on the mouth (hard) and do my dishes after you read this gripping, beautiful intense read. here it is in :ebook form: I cannot overemphasize enough, if you read one book this summer, make it thissun.

For parent with non-sleepin' kiddoz:

check this book out. Dear lord, check this book out.

For reasons you will soon understand, no pictures will be offered. Trust the link ...trust it.

And finally from our Card& Gift room: This adorable med-lugging tin box. (other designs as well, but today, yes today this one just feels so right. So so right.

Last thought of this depressing post comes form Jezebel.com. Wow. This is where we live.

For real last thought,

It's cool in here. We have water outside, and cookies inside for you dogs, and a crazy selection of everything for you. Come by and cheer me up.

2nd Place Poem!!!!

Congratulations Sasenarine Persaud!


BROOKLINE BOOKSMITH: LOVE WITHIN LOVE

Searching in the basement for a Palace
of the Peacock you find instead
a lookout on a hill overlooking
the Ottawa Valley, grass shimmering
like pages in your hand. Whose fingers
flipped these covers before revealing
the winter limbs of a writer's soul
full as pomegranate nipples tonight
can wait - upstairs a book sale;
we brush coats still damp
from the flurries outside and we are hungry
hungry hungry negotiating the book-bins.





Sasenarine Persaud is the author of 10 books. His awards include: The KM Hunter Foundation Award, the Arthur Schomburg Award; two Canada Council Poetry Awards, and a fellowship from Boston University. Persaud has a Master's in Creative Writing from Boston University. His work is used in colleges and universities in Canada, England, India, the Caribbean, and the United States. Two books new books are forthcoming in 2011: Unclosed Entrances: Selected Poems and Lantana Strangling Ixora.

Results: 1st Booksmith Flash Poetry Prize

Congratulations to our three winners, Elizabeth McGovern, Sasenarine Persaud, and Elizabeth Witte.

I will share the winning poems over the next 3 Saturdays.

Congratulations to our 1st Prize Winner: ($20 gift certificate to be used on our sweet poetry section, and taza chocolate) -Liz McGovern!





My Son in a Bookstore
-Liz McGovern

My son runs up and down
the aisles
Red curls blaze as he
descends upon the children's section.

Planes, trains, automobiles,
ducks, bunnies, pirates.

He moves the stools
Then the table
and with proper decorum
of his two years,
removes books one by one
from the shelves

He wishes he could read
Captain Underpants. I tell
him when he is older.
When he actually can read.

In a flash, he is again
on the other side of the store.

I glance at the other patrons,
sitting quietly and calmly
in the wooden chairs.

I worry what they must think
of me,
letting my son destroy
the serenity, the peace
of a bookstore. I worry
what they must think of him,
the feral child of "Mad Max,"
raised by wolves,
a misbehaving demon.

Arms loaded, I drop my
purchase on the counter.
The cashier smiles,
"What a wonderful child!"
Another coos, "What
great hair!"
"He must have so much fun!"

And I forget my worries.
Cassidy holds my hand
as we toddle out of the store together,
into the sun, and on our way
to other adventures.

Liz resides in Salem with her husband Ian, two year old son Cassidy, and two rabbits Sabrina and Snorbles. When she isn't entering poetry contests or working, she spends most of her time at playgrounds, yarn stores, and of course, bookstores. Her favorite poetry comes from the Romantics, and the last book she read was Kurt Vonnegut's Look at the Birdie.

National Poetry Month, or as I like to call it (cut the crap, stop denying yourself)

Do you dislike poetry? Does the word itself induce high school flashbacks to a time when a bulky clip-art speckled text book told you to find the meaning beneath the meaning? Well then your aversion is understandable. *****************But

I dare you to pick up a book of contemporary poetry. The pageant has evolved. Poetry is sick, twisted, weird, violent, moving, readable....magnetic. Flash fiction? please...

Short attention span? strange tastes? What are you doing not reading poetry? It's like porn and painting and applesauce all in one! If you want something chiller that exists too...*********but

Poetry is there for people who hate grammar, and conventions, or people who love them and want to play with them. If what your brain spits out is to disjointed, or too vitriolic for prose....it becomes consumable as poetry.

Mark has done an amazing job bringing in some of the newest most exciting poets out there. We have the standards too. So.....if you want to expand your reading, challenge your narrative, improve your composing, painting, writing, thinking and living....find a cover or title that speaks to you, read a poem....if you hate it put it down (life's too short-juts pick up another) If you love it you will find a never ending supply of that wealth.

Poetry is not what you read in High School, or for that matter college. It is inappropriate, vivid, uncomfortable ENTERTAINING and alive...and the good stuff is very impolite.

You'll be making your significant other/cat listen as you slur your new favorite poem over 3 glasses of wine and tears...I promise.

Here's what I'm reading now:

April Mowing the Lawn

Drunk and barefoot is surprisingly

Meticulous, especially in the corners,

Shoving the old vrooming machine deep

In the knee-high thrushes of weeds and mint

And flush with the giant slate stone steps

Some glacier dumped a millions years ago.

Up and down, back and forth. Why bother?

I yell to her. Why not simply ask all the horses

Over to take the blades down with their teeth?

Hell, let it grow- Like the golden shadow cast

By our growing pile of beer bottles, like

Who cares? She yells back over the motor that

In South Acworth, a lawn's merely all you

Choose to take away from all that's there

To take away.

from collection Drunk by Noon

(by the kickass Jennifer Knox)

reading = people watching.

The sign on the horse's blinder says...."stay back I bite." I do not believe this horse bites. I think the owner would prefer drunk "pub-crawl" attendees not commune with Sheila (or whatever the horses name is.)

Either way I stood there, this past Saturday (in what felt like spring) and photographed the horse.
I was a bit tired from roaming the aquarium, that when I noticed a drunk broseph stumble over to my subject....

I didn't warn him about the sign on Sheila. I think part of me wanted to see if the written warning was truthful. Then I heard myself think that, and said (to myself) did you kinda want to see Sheila bite Logan (or whatever his name is)?

I love people watching, and reading especially good narrative poetry brings me closer to a humanity that I'm often distanced from.

On the trip home, I didn't have anyone sitting in front of me to creepily watch. That's where having a collection of kick-ass poetry comes in. The good stuff is better than hoping a horse bites a stranger.

Come in and check out our selections of new poetry. There's some filthy-brilliant-sick-funny stuff here. There's tons of staff recommendations to help guide you to the perfect collection...just in time for poetry month! (Or did I miss that?) Either way...It's more entertaining, and makes you look less crazy than say....taking photos of empty seats.

Fall. Gather your nuts.

So, If you're like me...and I can only assume you are...

you are getting

very excited

about fall.

Enough of this "beach reading sunny happy sweaty shavey shorty sunscreeny" business. Finally we can get back to sleeping without swimming in our own fluids. We can get back to being maudlin and autumnal and avuncular and no more pastels!

(avuncular?)

It is time for sad literature. It is time for literature. and turtlenecks. and run-on sentence fragments. And overcrowded Targets and too many reasonably priced Tupperware storage solutions!

Peanut butter and apple cidery-whiskey burned leafs and early bedtimes and temporal INSECTICIDE.

Per Peterson overtakes Stieg Larsson. Welcome back H.P. Lovecraft over Eckhart Tolle. Eat Pray Love bends to Tolstoy.

I cease freckle acquisition, and begin the hunt for a good Trapper-keeper.

Fall means rebirth of the interior.

Time to find a good book to beat you up.